


five minutes and fourty seconds

by goukyorin (sashimisusie)



Category: Persona 4
Genre: M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2015-11-25
Packaged: 2018-05-03 06:46:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5280755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sashimisusie/pseuds/goukyorin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One missed, four kissed. Snapshots of five times Yosuke and Souji kissed in Inaba.</p>
            </blockquote>





	five minutes and fourty seconds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sutera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sutera/gifts).



> Prompt: Souyo, "send me five times kissed for a drabble about five times our muses kissed"  
> The art is of my own making.

**i.**

Souji loves him.

Stepping side by side down to the Samegawa, the path to their secret spot traced into his memory, he knows this much when he is caught off-guard by the tearful direction their conversation takes. He can feel Yosuke’s sobs like an ache in his very bones, a dull pain that sticks and stays in the knotted fibers of his heart. His shoulder’s a mess and there’s no saving his shirt from a ten minute-long session with a scrub brush but he finds, hands rubbing circles into the wire-taut lines of his partner’s back, that he doesn’t care for any of that.

_I love you_ , each stroke says,  _let me help you in the ways I know how_.

What happens next, Souji finds himself wondering, anchor to the ebb and flow of the tears working their way out of Yosuke’s system, what happens after this? There’s an ache in his chest and his jaw feels close to wired shut from all the things he wants to say but Yosuke doesn’t need to hear.

Not right now. Not at this very moment.

Souji swallows back the urge to press his mouth against Yosuke’s to stem the flow of brokenhearted gasps, and bites his lip to the quick to bury that persistent itch.  _I love you, let me help_ , his embrace says, as he waits.

\-----

**ii.**

“I like you,” Yosuke blurts out, hands balling to fists at his side as if to tamp down the words that have escaped from his grasp. He is wind and movement, frayed nerves dancing in the breeze and mind tripping over thoughts and desires and worst-case scenarios.

The words echo in Souji’s mind, even as the other talks and talks and  _talks_  with the intent on filling every available moment of silence between them.

What happens now, Souji wonders, his own mind charting courses of action and his own hands beginning to shake with the start of nervous anxiety. A simple “ _me too_ ” seems wan in comparison to the flash-fire that’s gone and scorched him.

“Don’t hate me, partner.” Silence taken for refusal, Yosuke’s train of conversation takes a turn down paths unintended. It’s now, or never. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I like you– ”

Souji moves in, clipping close his orbit to the sun and stars that have settled in his eyes, and presses his lips against Yosuke’s.

\----- 

**iii.**

_Partner_.

Fondness colours every syllable, rose and gold and every precious thing Souji can pull to mind for how much each slip of that term of endearment means to him. Are they lovers, one might wonder, business partners, or robbers making a quick getaway? It feels like drowning to kiss Yosuke, like dying for air in a deep sky the colour of the sea, for how much breath the other manages to steal from his lips. Yet, pressing ice to bruised lips, he finds he doesn’t mind not being able to breathe.

“You’re getting water everywhere,"Yosuke complains."Aren’t you cold enough already without soaking me in ice water too?”

The corner of Souji’s mouth curls up, intimacy filling in the lines of that particular brand of smile. "Why are you so warm, then?"

**\-----**

**iv.**

“ Stay, please. ” Souji manages from a throat too dry for words.

It’s too quiet, too empty, and too cold in the Dojima house with just him. He doesn’t want to be a burden but he  _needs_  this simple comfort of company. If he lets go of the lifeline that is Yosuke’s sleeve between his thumb and forefinger, he’s not certain he’ll be able to find his way back to shore. “Please stay, if it’s not too much trouble--"

A look, complexities beyond his ken to process at this juncture, passes over Yosuke’s face. He settles back down again, back to chest and arms looped loosely around his waist.

“--It’s no trouble at all. You can ask for things, you know.”

There are lips on the nape of his neck, and warm breaths by the shell of his ear. Winter thaws to spring in the heat of his love’s light, and he merely nods his affirmation.

\-----

**v.**

There are five minutes and fourty seconds remaining to them. Five minute and thirty-nine, thirty-eight, and Souji can’t help but count down each the minutes until he can count forward to his eventual return. This time, he’s the one tripping over his words breathlessly and why, oh why didn’t he think to bring it up earlier than the four minutes and thirty-two seconds before his departure from Inaba?

"I don’t know when I’ll be back," Souji says, ignoring the dejected look Nanako gives him at that statement and the stares of his friends circled around him at this direction of questioning, "And Tokyo is far. Even with email. I’ll understand if you don’t want to– _ah,_  what I mean to ask is--"

Two minutes and fourteen seconds.

Yosuke shakes his head. There’s a glassy wetness to his eyes, but he’s not crying. Not this time. "I’m not saying goodbye, partner."

One minute. The train arrival tone sounds, the announcement loud over the speakers. He buries his sadness, lips curling to form that one smile he keeps just for the bond looped and knotted with the very threads that make up his heart. Thirty-seven seconds, and he’s pressing his mouth like a promise against Yosuke’s. 

"Then I won’t either."


End file.
